Brother against brother

[JudgeDredd]

Well, I decided not to jump on this at the moment. Instead, it piqued my interest in the Civil War (which I have dipped in and out of over the years through various books) and I bought Ken Burns Civil War series of DVDs.

The aim is to get me in the mood to spunk the £50 on the physical edition.

Can I ask Gil whilst you are checking here - do you know if the manual is the same in type (hard backed hard bound) as the War in the West manual?

I might as well throw one to Erik here - Erik - your description page could do with more info so the user can decide to spunk the extra cash on a physical copy or not. It's not at all clear what the manual looks like.

[spelk]

I was hoping you could default it to counters all of the time. The troop graphics were not thrilling me.

I think you can turn on the counter graphics all the time. If you want. It's a key toggle, or from the options menu.

[spelk]

Historical Gamer gives us his first impressions of BaB

https://youtu.be/EzEUkfmp6pI

[Toonces]

Instead, it piqued my interest in the Civil War (which I have dipped in and out of over the years through various books) and I bought Ken Burns Civil War series of DVDs.

Hey JD, I just watched the first 2.5 episodes on Netflix and it's fantastic- you're going to love it!

[Tuna]

Instead, it piqued my interest in the Civil War (which I have dipped in and out of over the years through various books) and I bought Ken Burns Civil War series of DVDs.

Hey JD, I just watched the first 2.5 episodes on Netflix and it's fantastic- you're going to love it!

Ken Burns series is excellent, you feel like your 'living' it. lol, my Stepson 'borrowed' mine when he moved to NYC, granted his first job was working on a Civil War collection for the NYPL, but that was 5 years ago, I want it back!

[Rayfer]

Historical Gamer gives us his first impressions of BaB

https://youtu.be/EzEUkfmp6pI

A much more positive review as compared with that on RPS.

[JudgeDredd]

I'm looking forward to it. It may spur me into playing Civil War II and perhaps even buying this for the get down and dirty battles.

[bbmike]

Haven't dived completely in yet but it's making me want to play Forge of Freedom again.  :))

[tgb]

Historical Gamer gives us his first impressions of BaB

https://youtu.be/EzEUkfmp6pI

Thanks for that.  I've been on the fence and HG's videos are always intelligent and insightful.

[Gil R.]

Gil,
I appreciate the response. I have no doubt it is a superb product. I Have been following it for years and i know it's a labor of love. I DO like games that experiment with smaller battles or battles that are under-gamed.  That's what I like about Graviteam tactics.

I will pick this up at some point here as it looks beautiful and well done. Not for me now, but I didnt want to come across as pissing and moaning about the game. It is what you wanted it to be. Now if we could get as many hex based civil war:musket era games as we have space 4xs...we will be in bidness

I didn't take your post as "pissing and moaning," but rather expressing what we knew might be the reaction of some.  It may turn out that our plan for BAB was wrong, and we should have done just three releases jammed with only large battles rather than trying to get to 5-7 releases.  But if sales levels prove us wrong, that won't mean that we didn't have good reasons (several, in fact) to start with smaller battles and build to larger ones.

All,
On a semi-related note, in my previous response to mikeck I mentioned that we wouldn't be doing Seven Pines, mainly because the way it happened historically seemed -- at the time we were planning -- to be almost impossible to pull off, since so much of the way that battle unfolded depended on specific commanders not doing what they were supposed to.  (From the point of view of designing a game, I think that Seven Pines and Antietam are the major battles most difficult to simulate.  Much easier to have something like Gettysburg Day 3, where the two forces are mostly lined up and facing each other.)   However, our Peninsula Campaign maps will include the area of the battlefield, so maybe I'll take a shot at it, but if not it will be there for modders.  So in some form Seven Pines will be in BAB.

[Gil R.]

I believe that Matrix uses the same approach to designing all its manuals and the same printer.

Erik is off this coming week, so he he's unlikely to be responding in this thread for a while.

[GibbyG]

re: the manual

From Eric on the Matrix forum

The printed manual for Brother against Brother is a full color 200 page printed manual on good stock. It's not the hardbound style like WIF and WITW, it's the same style as our other manuals so that it fits (barely) within the case.

Regards,

- Erik

[spelk]

I did a quick 'plan and see' session on the Williamsburg scenario.

http://sugarfreegamer.com/brother-against-brother-plan-and-see/

[Toonces]

Only JD would buy a $50 DVD set to watch in order to convince him to spend $50 on a game!   

[JudgeDredd]

re: the manual

From Eric on the Matrix forum

The printed manual for Brother against Brother is a full color 200 page printed manual on good stock. It's not the hardbound style like WIF and WITW, it's the same style as our other manuals so that it fits (barely) within the case.

Regards,

- Erik

So that sounds to me like the War in the East manual. a relatively small DVD case size manual. No thanks. I didn't get on with that size manual at all. It was too small and the pictures were almost useless.

A Collectors Edition smacks of "something special" - like the manuals for World in Flames (and they went over and above on that one imo with the manuals - though I don't have them I did want them and might one day still get them) or the manual for War in the West.

However that's not the case - it's just "a colour manual". It could be 30 pages - but if it's colour, they can call it the Collectors Edition. I know they wouldn't - just saying that the colour part seems to be what makes the Collectors Edition.

DX = PDF
ST (should) = DVD B&W manual
CL (should) = Special hard back colour manual

Just my opinion